The statements in this section merely provide background information related to the present disclosure and may not constitute prior art.
Hard-facing relates generally to techniques or methods of applying a hard, wear resistant alloy to the surface of a substrate, such as a softer metal, to reduce wear caused by abrasion, erosion, corrosion, and heat, among other operational or environmental conditions. A variety of methods are available to apply the wear resistant alloy to the substrate, among which includes welding, where a welding wire is deposited over the substrate surface to produce a weld deposit that is highly wear resistant. The welding wire may include a solid wire, metal-cored wire or a flux-cored wire, wherein the metal-cored wire generally comprises a metal sheath filled with a powdered metal alloy and the flux-cored wire generally comprises a mixture of powdered metal and fluxing ingredients. Accordingly, flux-cored and metal-cored wires offer additional versatility due to the wide variety of alloys that can be included within the powdered metal core in addition to the alloy content provided by the sheath.
One known welding wire material that is commonly used for hard-facing includes chromium carbides. While conventional chromium carbides provide good wear resistance, the weld deposits produced from chromium carbide welding wires can produce a cross-checking pattern in the hard weld deposit surface, which is undesirable due to an increased susceptibility to cracking from such patterns. Additionally, coarse chromium carbides contribute to check-cracking, which are cracks that develop perpendicular to a bead direction and accelerate abrasive wear.